It has been interesting this afternoon noticing that virtually the entire media has commented that the Live Earth series of continents are being held in seven continents concerts…but, that can’t be right…let’s list the continents.

And the Live Earth concerts are taking place in:
New York (North America)
London (Europe)
Sydney (Australia)
Rio de Janeiro (South America)
Tokyo (Asia)
Shanghai (Asia)
Johannesburg (Africa)
Hamburg (Europe)

Update: Mick has pointed out in the comments below that there will be a pre-recorded concert in Antartica…I stand corrected, but I still think the whole thing is a gigantic waste of time…probably great for the fans of the bands which are playing at the concerts though. End Update

All the continents except for Antarctica…so it’s only happening in six continents. That then brings me to the question of who is the source of this erroneous seven continents figure…with this many media outlets using the line, it almost has to be the publicist, and the Live Earth website confirms it:

Live Earth is a 24-hour, 7-continent concert series taking place on 7/7/07 that will bring together more than 100 music artists and 2 billion people to trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis.

I can’t say that I’m entirely surprised that Al Gore is using inflated figures to promote this series of concerts to promote a questionable cause (and if carbon emissions really are to blame for climate change…how much more than usual is this concert series producing?).

Further Update: Mick also points out that the concerts are apparently carbon neutral. Someone must be making an awful lot of money selling those carbon credits! End Update

I still think it’s a giant waste of time, but I suppose you wouldn’t have expected anything less from me, after all I don’t believe humans are the main, or even much of a, contributing factor to the change in climate.

“The Earth’s climate is always changing”.

3.
donescobar | July 7th, 2007 at 6:17 pm

Typo in the first paragraph Sam.

It should read “the live earth series of concerts”, not “series of continents”.

Clayton, we don’t have the power to change the climate, and if we did, wouldn’t exercising that power be exactly what you are trying to stop? Human interference with Earth’s climate.

I’m not against cutting down on pollution, because I agree that the world would be better with less pollution, but forcing draconian and economically irresponsible cuts to pollution under the false pretence of preventing the planet from getting warmer, is downright ludicrous.

From Wikipedia –
“Significant quantities of methane are also produced
by cattle — not by flatulence, as is commonly
believed, but 95% through belching. The livestock
sector in general (primarily cattle, chickens, and
pigs) produces 37% of all human-induced methane”.

Something needs to be done about belching animals !

18.
Pen 15 | July 8th, 2007 at 11:48 pm

I say we eat them all!

19.
donescobar | July 9th, 2007 at 3:37 pm

It’s interesting to note that the biggest offender of the so-called “Greenhouse Gases” is Methane, a ‘non carbon’ emission.